Why Homer Matters: A History
- ISBN-10
- 1627791809
- ISBN-13
- 9781627791809
- Category
- History
- Pages
- 320
- Language
- English
- Published
- 2014-11-18
- Publisher
- Henry Holt and Company
- Author
- Adam Nicolson
Description
"Adam Nicolson writes popular books as popular books used to be, a breeze rather than a scholarly sweat, but humanely erudite, elegantly written, passionately felt...and his excitement is contagious."—James Wood, The New Yorker Adam Nicolson sees the Iliad and the Odyssey as the foundation myths of Greek—and our—consciousness, collapsing the passage of 4,000 years and making the distant past of the Mediterranean world as immediate to us as the events of our own time. Why Homer Matters is a magical journey of discovery across wide stretches of the past, sewn together by the poems themselves and their metaphors of life and trouble. Homer's poems occupy, as Adam Nicolson writes "a third space" in the way we relate to the past: not as memory, which lasts no more than three generations, nor as the objective accounts of history, but as epic, invented after memory but before history, poetry which aims "to bind the wounds that time inflicts." The Homeric poems are among the oldest stories we have, drawing on deep roots in the Eurasian steppes beyond the Black Sea, but emerging at a time around 2000 B.C. when the people who would become the Greeks came south and both clashed and fused with the more sophisticated inhabitants of the Eastern Mediterranean. The poems, which ask the eternal questions about the individual and the community, honor and service, love and war, tell us how we became who we are.
Get the book
Other editions
Similar books
-
Life Between the Tides
By Adam NicolsonAdam Nicolson explores the marine life inhabiting seashore rockpools with a scientist’s curiosity and a poet’s wonder in this beautifully illustrated book.
-
The Mighty Dead: Why Homer Matters
By Adam NicolsonIn this passionate, deeply personal book, Adam Nicolson explains why Homer matters - to him, to you, to the world - in a text full of twists, turns and surprises.
-
Why Bob Dylan Matters
By Richard F. ThomasThis witty, personal volume is a distillation of Thomas’s famous course, and makes a compelling case for moving Dylan out of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and into the pantheon of Classical poets.
-
The Iliad & The Odyssey
By HomerThe Iliad: Join Achilles at the Gates of Troy as he slays Hector to Avenge the death of Patroclus. Here is a story of love and war, hope and despair, and honor and glory.
-
The Cambridge Guide to Homer
By Corinne Ondine Pache, Robert Lamberton, Casey DuéThe Cambridge Guide to Homer thus traces the many routes taken by Homeric epic in the ancient world and its continuing relevance in different periods and cultures.
-
Why Literature Matters: Permanence and the Politics of Reputation
By Glenn Cannon ArberyThrough an examination of the work of poets and novelists who have managed to garner honor -- including Shakespeare, Homer, and Emily Dickinson -- and those whose reputations are of...
-
God's Secretaries: The Making of the King James Bible
By Adam NicolsonIt drips with potency and sensitivity. The age, with all its conflicts, explains the book. This P.S. edition features an extra 16 pages of insights into the book, including author interviews, recommended reading, and more.
-
The Trojan War: A Very Short Introduction
By Eric H. ClineUsing a combination of archaeological data, textual analysis, and ancient documents, this Very Short Introduction to the Trojan War investigates whether or not the war actually took place, whether archaeologists have correctly identified ...
-
Sea Room: An Island Life in the Hebrides
By Adam NicolsonIn Sea Room, Nicolson describes and relives his love affair with the three tiny islands and their strange and colorful history in passionate, keenly precise prose—sharing with us the greatest gift an island bestows on its inhabitants: a ...
-
The Odyssey: (The Stephen Mitchell Translation)
By HomerA new translation of Homer's epic adventure endeavors to instill the poetic nature of its original language while retaining accuracy, readability, and character vibrancy, creating the most captivating rendition of one of the defining ...